There are two things on my mind as March comes to a close: Spring & Shared Adventures.

Spring in Central Texas means one thing – bluebonnets. Thank you Lady Bird Johnson for blanketing our roadsides with the much adored bluebonnet. Even after 23 years of living here I still gasp at my first bluebonnet sighting every year.

Shared Adventures – It’s what life is all about and how I try to fill my days. Adventures, big and small, with family, old friends, new friends and strangers along the way.

Truth Over Strategy is my approach to life. My true north. Lately I’ve been considering the definition of truth. We hold it to be an absolute, but is it?

He fudged the truth. A little white lie. A grain of truth. The God’s honest truth.

Seems it’s anything but absolute.

My working theory is that we start with the easiest form of truth – Truth Lite, if you will – and we’re usually content to stop there. Easy. Safe. But maybe not the whole truth. So I’ve come up with a continuum of truth: The Truth >>> The Honest Truth >>> The Most Honest Truth

Here’s a simple example.

The truth is, I’m a good fit for this job.

The honest truth is, I can perform this job, but there are things I’ll need to learn.

The most honest truth is, I won’t always get it right, but I’ll work harder than anyone else to prove you made the right decision in hiring me.

As I’ve challenged myself to move through the degrees of truth I’m astonished at how uncomfortable the Most Honest Trust feels at times. And translating it into action places you smack in the middle of uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure, which is exactly how Brene Brown defines vulnerability.

When you lead with your most honest truth there’s no place to hide. You’re all in.

On the other side of the risk is clarity. When you go all in, there’s a deep satisfaction in knowing the answer, the results, the response you get in return – even when they aren’t what you’d hoped for – are untainted by the politics of posturing and hedging. Pure. No wondering, What if?

Be your brother’s keeper. Love your neighbor as yourself.Each child belongs to all of us.

I think it’s safe to assume we all want this kind of world — in our own homes, our neighborhoods, our schools, our work and across borders and languages and cultures and religions.

Then WHY is it so hard? Why do we so often fail?

Is it simply (tragically) the human condition? Surely not. I’m holding out hope that our true nature is not one of greed and pettiness and closed-mindedness. == Maybe that’s the point. To place our bets on hope ==

Not hope the passive noun. Not hope that someone else will do it. No. We need hope the verb. Action.

Without action it’s dreamy idealism. In contrast, Hope in Action declares: I care enough to do something.